


Facts Over Feelings

by Amedia



Series: Facts over Feelings [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-01
Updated: 2010-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amedia/pseuds/Amedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unabashed (well, slightly abashed) fluff. Takes place immediately after the big showdown/action scene in The Blind Banker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Facts Over Feelings

Lestrade finished writing in his notebook. "Thanks. If I think of any more questions, I'll text you." Sherlock nodded, his attention already wandering. The remainder of the Chinese gang had been led away; John's date, Sarah, was standing nearby talking to a policeman about getting a ride home.

Some distance away, he could hear John lecturing a paramedic. "You know as well as I do that scalp wounds bleed disproportionately to their severity."

Sarah's policeman had left. Sherlock stepped over to Sarah and gestured toward John. "How long was he unconscious?"

She eyed Sherlock suspiciously. "How do you know he was unconscious?"

"Other than the head injury, there's not a scratch on him. No way he would have allowed himself, let alone you, to be captured without a fight. You're unmarked as well." Sherlock gestured clinically up and down Sarah's body. "A woman who picks up a stick and runs _toward_ a fight doesn't go home with gangsters merely because she's been invited. With John unconscious, on the other hand, they could threaten him to gain your cooperation."

She nodded. "About twelve minutes."

They both glanced over at John, who was still trying to fend off the paramedic. "Stop shining that light in my face." His voice was tired but obstinate. "I don't need to go to hospital."

"Does he?" Sherlock asked Sarah.

She gave John a long, clinical look, and finally turned back to Sherlock. "I don't think so. He could go home as long as someone keeps an eye on him tonight. Poke him every hour or so to make sure he's really sleeping and not unconscious. You don't have to wake him up; just get him to move."

Sherlock nodded. "And if I can't?"

"Then you take him to hospital."

The policeman she'd been speaking to returned. "Ready to take you home, miss."

She nodded to him. "Let me just say goodbye to John."

Sherlock stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Thank you," he said.

"Of course," she said, and turned away.

******

When they got back to the flat, John flopped into a chair, opened his laptop, and stared at the blank screen. Sherlock went into the kitchen and rummaged around in the cupboards until he found the toolkit that held bandaging supplies; he carried it into the bathroom along with a kitchen stool. Then he went out and stood next to John.

John looked up. "What?" he asked, sounding as if he was too tired to muster proper irritation.

"Let me see your head," said Sherlock, jerking his head toward the bathroom.

John looked at him and after a long moment said, "Okay."

 _Okay?_ thought Sherlock. _Here I was all geared up to do battle._ He felt irrationally disappointed that he had achieved his goal so easily.

John sat down on the stool; Sherlock tipped the light fixture so that it shone directly on the side of John's head where he had been struck. John stared at the toolkit. "What's that for? You going to fix my head with a hammer and nails?"

Sherlock grinned. "No, take a look inside." He took off the lid. Each of the little compartments was filled with medical supplies: several different sizes of bandages and sticking plaster; scissors, needles, and silk; various antiseptic and antibiotic substances, and more.

"Let me guess," said John. "This was the gift of a grateful emergency-room doctor whose innocence you managed to prove against all odds."

Sherlock smiled. "Actually, it came from the rest of the emergency staff after I proved the doctor _guilty_." He turned serious again. "Now, let me see..."

He probed as gently as he could, trying to determine the extent of the injury. He wound up having to cut away some of John's blood-matted hair before he could get to the scalp; John didn't complain. It had to hurt like blazes when he was cleaning the wound as best he could with his little kit; John didn't flinch. Finally, as Sherlock was wrapping tape over the bandage to hold it in place, he said, "You surprise me, John."

"How?" asked John.

"By letting me do this. Mycroft says you have trust issues," Sherlock said, cutting the tape and patting the loose end into place.

John leaned his bandaged head momentarily against Sherlock's chest. "Mycroft doesn't know everything." He moved his head away and grinned up at Sherlock. "I think he was offended that I didn't instantly trust _him_. Normally, of course, I would immediately trust anyone who treated me to a do-it-yourself kidnapping so that he could make vague threats in a sinister parking garage, but there was something about him that just put me off."

Sherlock smiled down at John. "You're obviously a good judge of character," he said. He bent down to pick up his toolkit. "Done here," he added as an afterthought.

John waited until Sherlock had finished reassembling his supplies, then stood up and yawned. "Thanks."

********

Later that night, Sherlock lay awake trying to figure out a minor mystery: why did he have unspecified negative feelings toward Sarah? The mystery bothered him and he wanted to solve it, but he greatly preferred facts over feelings, especially when the feelings didn't make sense. _Why shouldn't I like her_? Remembering how she had picked up a stick and charged into the fray at the circus, he mused, _If I fancied women, I'd definitely fancy her._ He rolled over and squashed his pillow into different shapes, trying to get comfortable. _I don't fancy women. I don't fancy men. I don't fancy anybody_. Just as he was about to drift off, another thought struck him. _If I did fancy anybody, I'd fancy John_.

Sherlock's cell phone alarm went off exactly one hour after John had gone to bed, about five minutes after Sherlock himself had finally gotten comfortable. He grimaced as his bare feet hit the cold floor, and trod grumpily into John's room. John looked altogether much too cozy, and Sherlock felt no guilt about shaking him by the shoulder, perhaps more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

"Mmm-mm," said John, half-opening one eye and flapping his arm as if to ward off the unwelcome interruption.

"Fine," said Sherlock, turned around, and left.

The procedure had taken just long enough for his own bed to get cold. He reset the cell phone alarm, sighed, and tried to get warm again. He dozed fitfully for a while and finally fell asleep enough to dream. He was walking barefoot across the polar ice caps looking for penguins who were smuggling heroin in their earmuffs when the alarm went off again. "You know, in some countries, sleep deprivation is a form of torture," he said aloud. He thought for a moment, then picked up his pillow and cell phone and made his way to John's room.

John, sleeping flat on his back, was mostly taking up the right side of the bed. Sherlock sat down on the left side and poked halfheartedly at John's shoulder. "Mmm-mm," said John again. Duty done, Sherlock set a new alarm, plopped his own pillow down, and crawled under the covers.

John's bed wasn't nearly as warm as it looked. At least, not this far from John. Sherlock edged closer to the warmer side of the bed, sighed contentedly, and fell fast asleep.

The cell phone alarm chimed dutifully one hour later. Sherlock sat straight up, startled, and nearly knocked himself out on John's elbow, as John had done the exact same thing. "What the--" John stared at Sherlock, bewildered.

"That's my alarm," said Sherlock calmly, gathering his wits and his phone. "You're clearly not unconscious, so you can go back to sleep." He reset the alarm and set the phone back on the floor. "Lie back down." He gently pushed John back into a horizontal position, and then lay down exactly where he had been before, judging by the indentations in, and vestigial warmth of, the bedclothes.

 _Bit closer than I actually meant to be_ , he admitted to himself, as he realized that he had been lying on his side in a position entirely contiguous with the side of John's body, not something he was used to doing with anybody. He considered moving away, but he was reluctant to leave the sense of warmth, to say nothing of the unusually pleasant sensation of physical contact.

"Are you going to explain what you're doing in my bed being all ... snuggly?" sputtered John.

It was significant that John had not moved away, despite his protestations. Sherlock was uncertain what inference could be drawn from that observation. _Facts are easier to deal with than feelings_ , he said to himself. " _This_ ," he said to John, as loftily as his wounded dignity would permit, "is not snuggling."

John took the bait. "Oh, really?"

"Really. Honestly, do I have to explain everything in words of one syllable?" Sherlock moved closer, putting his head on John's nearer shoulder and his hand on John's opposite shoulder, and then arranged the rest of himself languidly in between. " _This_ ," he said, "is snuggling."

If the sensation of physical contact had been unusually pleasant before, it was extraordinarily so now. It was only with the greatest of reluctance that Sherlock moved himself back to the exact position where he had been earlier: head on his own pillow, hands to himself, body pressed chastely against John's for warmth. " _This_ I would call 'nestling,'" he said, as quietly as he could speak and still be heard over his own thundering heartbeat. "Got it?"

There was a moment of hesitation as John seemed to be digesting the distinction. Sherlock was entirely unprepared for his response. "I'm not sure I've quite got it," said John. "You have any objection to demonstrating that again?"

Sherlock had no objection. He got himself draped over John and was surprised again when he felt John's nearer arm around his shoulders, holding him in place. "I think I have a grasp of the situation now," said John.

"Mmm-mm," said Sherlock.  
  



End file.
